Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .338-06 (Improved ?)

OK, I've kinda made up my mind to have a .30-06 rifle rebored or rebarreled to .338-06. A lot of folks on this site think very highly of the chambering and the rest don't know what they're talking about [I'm kidding].

I figger one of the "Improved" versions is the way to go and therein lies my question. There is the .338-06 Ackley Improved, the .338 Hawk, the .338-06 RCBS Improved, the .340 Howell, and probably a dozen more that I've not heard of.

Are any of these substantially different (or better) than the others? If so, which one(s) and why?

I like the 280 RCBS necked up to 338 the best.

I went through the same decision making process when I had my standard .338-06 (.338 OKH) built. If you will look at Ken Water's Pet Loads article on the Improved version and compare it with the load charts in the loading manuals, you will find little significant difference between the two. Why go to all that extra work for no real gain? If you need more velocity go to the .338 Winchester Magnum or the .340 Weatherby.

I agree. I did the same comparison and went with the standard .338-06. Mine is pushing 225 grain bullets at 2650 fps with a 22 inch barrel. If I needed more, I would have gone with a .338 Win Mag. I'm so happy with this rifle, I sold one .35 Whelen, and have another up for sale.

I've been thinking about one of these myself. Go over to www.canadiangunnutz.com and look up a guy with the handle "toller", he has the Improved version.

Same here. If you want more oomph than the standard .338-06 can give, why not go straight to the .338 magnum? Also, tooling up to reload any additional caliber racks up the $$$, and if it's an off-the-wall wildcat, it's going to be harder to find dies., etc., and they're going to cost even more. When you really think about it, all the hoopla about "efficiency" doesn't make much practical sense. All a cartridge really is is a brass powder container to hold a certain amount of powder to blow a chunk of lead and copper out the barrel. Want more velocity? Use a bigger container. I don't think shoulder shape, short/fat, long/skinny make a bit of difference in practical hunting rifles. Benchrest rifles like the 6PPC sure, but not a hunting rifle. JMO, and yeah, I love my .338-06.

Paul

I have to agree. The additional "power" comes from increasing the case volume, and most Improved cases don't add significant case volume. Keeping pressures equal, most Imp cases add at most ca. 100 fps in muzzle velocity, often less. This can be verified by looking in the current loading manuals for pressure tested data, not on someone's website where there is no control of the chamber pressures. [ The reason so many wildcats used to show such impressive velocity gains over the parent case was the propensity of the wildcatters to use very high chamber pressures to make their wonderkind look good - no wonder they got higher velocities. ]

My 15-year-old .338-06 is on a Remington M7600, and it is an excellent rifle for Alaskan game. I had the original .30-06 barrel rebored, but if I was to do it again I'd probably spend the extra $$$ on a new barrel. But I digress....when hunting deer, caribou or moose the .338-06 does just fine. When hunting brownies, I carry my .338 Win Mag.